"A year is 13 months"

Hello,
This is Aoyagi.

This week, I'd like to share a little tidbit I recently learned.





Ethiopia's Year Has 13 Months

My previous image of Ethiopia was limited to Haile Selassie, who has strong ties to the Rastafarian movement and reggae, and it being a famous origin of the coffee I drink daily.

I won't delve into those two topics this time, as it would be a digression (lol).

The new information I learned about Ethiopia was that "a year has 13 months."



The Gregorian calendar is the general concept of time flow used in most countries worldwide, including Japan.

In contrast, Ethiopia uses its unique Ethiopian calendar.


The system is surprisingly simple:

・1 month = 30 days × 12 months
・The remaining 5 days (6 days in a leap year) = 13th month

What an interesting structure!



What if Japan also used the Ethiopian calendar?

Perhaps the thought of "How many days are in this month?" would disappear.

That thought crosses my mind almost every month, so it might relieve some mental burden (lol).


But on the other hand,

I also wondered how monthly payments like rent, utilities, and subscriptions, as well as income and payment cycles, would change.


The progression of the year, the flow of money, and the rhythm of life might all change in surprisingly many ways just by adding one more month to the calendar.


Thinking about it this way, "common sense" and "the norm" are surprisingly vague, and being too bound by them can be dangerous as it might stifle free thinking.


A year has 12 months.
Even that isn't absolute.


Thinking this way makes me feel like my perspective broadens a little.

This week's column was a little tidbit that you'll instinctively want to share with someone.